Tag Archives: Questacon

Things have been a little quiet here on the blog for a while, but my life has been very busy The second explains the first. If I try to share everything in one post you will be reading for days, so I thought I would start with some highlights.

Over the school holidays the chicks and I got stuck into our garden and created four vegetable patches – well, one herb garden and three vege patches. Between chickens, birds and possums we were quickly down to two vege patches and one herb garden, but they are thriving well. I was particularly proud of our efforts in recycling and repurposing in order to protect the gardens! (These are old junior hockey pop up goals).

A couple of weeks ago the chicks and I hosted some very long term friends for a weekend to experience Canberra as part of the Human Brochure. I will write in more detail soon, but can report that the weekend was more wonderful than any of us expected! Some photographic highlights to whet your appetite include:

Kids amazed that they can move a stone at Questacon

My boy tempting a giraffe at the National Zoo and Aquarium

Sienna feeding a lion – as you do – at the National Zoo and Aquarium

My parents came to visit for a week about three weeks ago and are still here. We decided that I needed to sell my house and move to somewhere that cost a little less to maintain, so have spent the last few weeks working flat out to spruce up the house. All those little jobs that I have been meaning to do for the last few years have been done and the house looks wonderful! At the time of writing we are re-thinking the decision to sell, so stand by for developments in that area over the next few months! If I stay it means that I get to enjoy all our hard work, which will be great!

I haven’t managed a large amount of sewing, with everything else that has been going on, but have been creative in other ways, including making some gifts for my guests using some great quotes from an article about Canberra.

This might be the briefest update in my blog’s history, especially given all that is going on, so I will have to provide more detail and more photos over the next couple of weeks. In the meantime I have to share my latest hair colouring adventure with you. My father asked me if it was ‘designed to attract or repel?’. When I responded that it was ‘to amuse’ he informed me that it had done it’s job!

Last week I made an attempt at keeping up with blogging about all the amazing adventures that I have been having during the ‘discovery phase’ of being part of the ‘human brochure’ for Canberra. And now I am behind again! The human brochure blog is up and running, so I will put my detailed posts in there, and instead share my personal highlights here!

Last Friday night we were invited to attend a restaurant called Poacher’s Pantry, which is about 20 minutes outside Canberra, for an evening hosted by a group called Poacher’s Way. This is a group of businesses who have joined together to promote the food, wine and tourism of the region. This is one of those places that I have always heard about….. and never been to.

The delightful line up of Eden Road wines – all of them quite delicious!

The delight of not just attending, but attending with all of the Poacher’s Way group represented was infectious! I didn’t get to see and taste everything on offer because there was just so much goodness to be had – but did managed to strike up a conversation with one of the most flirtatious members of the group who happened to be offering tastings of his wine. So I tasted the full range…… and it was a very good range! I am going to have to do a cellar door visit to Eden Road Wines to sample a few more I suspect!

There were beautiful handmade chocolates, beautiful baked goods and cheese, suitably firey chilli oils, a dessert garden that included chocolate ‘soil’, delicious duck pancakes, and a coffee cocktail that was superb! The baristas from one of Canberra’s great coffee houses, Two before Ten, prepared a cocktail using cold brewed coffee (steeped for 18 hours), freshly squeezed Granny Smith apple juice, and tequila. (They told us that they came up with it while messing around one day. Sure……) Anyway – it was a beautiful and surprisingly fine blend of flavours!

The ‘101’ cocktail from Two Before Ten baristas

We had to be ushered out in the end as I think we would have stayed for hours otherwise! Adding it to the list of places to go back to under my own steam!

The next event that I made it to was an evening at the newest brewery to open in Canberra, Bentspoke Brewery. I am not a big beer drinker, but thought a tour would be interesting. It wasn’t just interesting – I learnt a lot about making beer, and cider, and was educated on how to properly taste beer! One of the beers has oregano added to it, rather than a sweet herb, and it was light, fragrant and delicious! The cider, however, was the winner. Made with local apples it was made with brewers yeast so that the fermentation process didn’t remove all the sugar and flavour, so had no added sugar or concentrate – and was crisp, fresh and tasty! (Oh – and the bar snacks were amongst the most delicious I have ever tasted!)

On Saturday I spent the whole day hanging out with the humans from the ‘Family Fun’ group and being shown around Canberra looking at ‘family fun’ options. The first stop was the Australian Institute of sport where we were able to access parts of the AIS that aren’t on the ‘normal’ tour. That was quite interesting. We were told that a particular swimming pool as a high tech as they come.

Hi tech pool at the Australian Institute of Sport

The delightful Tom Edgar with one of our ‘humans’ Jemma, who is a good sport too!

I was internally scoffing because really, how high tech can a pool be? Turns out it can be very high tech. Oops! In addition to all sorts of interesting things around how the water is filtered (using diatomaceous earth), and the length of the pool can be adjusted, it is also fitted with underground cameras and cameras that run on tracks along the bottom of the pool, which mean that 3D images can be created of the swimmers so that they and their coaches can study their stroke, etc, to see what can be improved. Pretty fascinating! We also got to watch the Commonwealth games gymnasts training, see fencing, basketball, and to hang out with a very cool, and very tall, olympic volley ball player, Tom Edgar. And the icing on the cake? They gave us water bottles full of water!!

The miniature figure on the toilet with a newspaper!

The rest of the day was not quite as exciting as we re-visited Cockington Green and the Dinosaur Museum. However it was good to see things in daylight and to be able to look without children to chase – and I did manage to get a better picture of the figure on the toilet that I wrote about, plus Freddy Kruger and Jason from Friday the 13th (I was corrected about my confusion over horror movies!!)

Freddy and Jason duelling it out in the sunlight

We also went to Questacon, the National Science Museum. I have been there many time, but not recently and it was interesting to see new exhibits and to see old favourites. Our guides conducted experiments for us – including spraying our tongues with food colouring so that we could see our taste buds to determine if we were supertasters or not. Mine was strangely close to my hair colour!

Blue tongued Aussie?

There are a few more events to attend, and I am looking forward to them, but am also looking forward to focussing here on my normal posts about life in the nest and sewing!

If you are interested in reading my more detailed posts on my ‘human’ experiences around Canberra, and those of my fellow ‘humans’ then check out the website – Human Brochure.

the little bird

Welcome to a little bird made me!
I am Theresa, the little bird who makes things. If I am going to label myself I am the mother of three chicks, a fabric addict, designer, small business owner, friend, lover of music, owner of chickens, and now a farmer on land just outside Canberra, Australia.

Facebook Posts

Today I am packaging up a bulk order of my reusable teabags for a client who will include them in gift hampers, and working on another bulk order for a different customer who will include them in gift boxes! I admire how many people are supporting the shift to handmade and sustainable products. ... See MoreSee Less

Good morning! Here is a splash of bright colour to help you start your week- a custom order I am working on for a customer to gift to her sister. I love knowing who orders are going to - it helps with the design and styling because each cosy is unique, just like each customer ! (And yes, that is my knee acting as the model for the cosy!)

Well, I have done it - completed my order for a set of tea cosies for the beautiful cafe Le Bon Melange. In the process I think I have perfected my pattern for making the tea cosies, so decided it was time to share it here. This is the first time that I have published a crochet pattern, so please be gentle with me - and let me know if you find any errors!! [ 575 more words ]

I haven't been talking about my reusable tea bags in all the excitement of making colourful tea cosies so thought it was time I did! A friend asked me today what the story is with this concept and how to use them so here is an explanation.

I drink a fair bit of loose leaf tea and use infusers to make a mug of tea but for some of my cups an infuser is the wrong shape/size etc and that is where a tea bag is easier. But then I discovered that my 'organic fair trade tea' teabags weren't breaking down in the compost or worm farm because they are made with plastic in them 😱. Enter the organic cotton reusable tea bag as a replacement!

To use them I put a teaspoon of loose tea in the bag and draw the string tight, then use it as I would a normal tea bag. After your tea has reached the strength you want you can either empty the tea leaves while the bag is wet by turning it inside out, then rinse the bag and let it dry before using again, or you can leave the bag to dry and shake the dry leaves out, then rinse and dry. I like to shake the dry leaves out but it means that the tannins from the tea stains the cotton. This doesn't affect the functionality of the tea bag, just the look! You can pop them in the wash for a deeper clean (inside a lingerie bag so they don't get lost!) or give them a soak in bicarbonate soda and vinegar to remove any buildup.

One of the photos below shows the discolouration of a teabag after several weeks of continuous use. Although the fabric will eventually wear out and need replacing I estimate that I with 4 bags in circulation in my kitchen I have conservatively saved over 100 teabags from becoming landfill in a couple of months, and the bags are still going strong!

I like that these are really portable- pre-filled at home they slip into a pouch in my bag to take with me. I hope to release travel pouches for them soon so that you can safely carry dry bags out and wet bags in without making a mess in your bag!

If you haven't any questions please don't hesitate to ask! (And I do wholesale these.) ... See MoreSee Less